I'm a teen - get me out of here!

From its title, you'd think "I Capture the Castle" is another of the summer's many action-adventure epics. In fact, it's the opposite - a story of teenage love and domestic drama that's aimed primarily at adolescent girls but should appeal to open-hearted audiences of all ages.

The heroine is Cassandra, a 17-year-old facing (you guessed it) lots of family problems. Her father, James, is a once-successful novelist who hasn't finished a new book - or written a clever sentence, for that matter - in 12 years.

Her older sister Rose is a chronic complainer, and their new stepmother is amiable but as eccentric as they come, even in 1930s England, where eccentricity is a valued commodity.

Two things loom over all of them. One is the searing memory of the worst day in the family's life, when James attacked the girls' mother (now dead from unrelated causes) with a murderous anger that might have proved disastrous if his weapon had been more effective.

The other is the home where they now live: an ancient castle where James ensconces them in the vain hope it'll inspire him to write the masterpieces that have been eluding him for the past decade or so. It doesn't take a literary genius to figure out that the place's initial charms - antique architecture, enigmatic carvings, a sense of history - will soon give way to the irritations and frustrations of leaky walls, drafty passageways, and a total lack of modern conveniences. Even if they had a radio, there'd be no place to plug it in.

On top of this, the household is impoverished and the rent is overdue by two years. Can anything save Cassandra and Rose from eviction and homelessness? Enter two American brothers: Simon, who now owns the castle, and his business-minded brother, Neil, who wants to evict the current tenants.

Determined to avert this fate, Rose sets out to make Simon fall in love with her, despite the fact that she doesn't fancy him a bit. Her plan works, but hints of romance have been blooming between Simon and Cassandra as well, auguring a complicated future, if not a catastrophic one.

In his feature-filmmaking debut, Tim Fywell has directed "I Capture the Castle" with a refreshing lack of grandiosity, coaxing first-rate performances from most of the cast - headed by Romola Garai as Cassandra and Henry Thomas as Simon - and also from the castle, whose gloomy atmosphere fends off the sentimentality and overstatement that occasionally threaten to capture the movie. It's surprising no filmmaker has adapted Dodie Smith's novel before now, and pleasing that Mr. Fywell and company have done such a responsible job with it. It's one of the season's most captivating surprises.

• "How to Deal," rated PG-13, contains profanity, sensuality, and drug use. "I Capture the Castle," rated R, contains nudity and sensuality.

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